Much like the namesake character himself, The Lord of The Rings: Gollum couldn't be saved from what it became. Frustrating platforming coupled with boring gameplay and cheap ways to die make any experience hard to play. Unfortunately, the intriguing setting and lore exploration can't come close to overshadowing the game's fundamental issues.

Though Company of Heroes 3 might lack some polish and its implementation of a console-friendly control system takes a good while to get used to, Relic Entertainment has nonetheless crafted a layered World War II RTS that combines meaningful tactical choices and consequences with compelling street-level strategy that just begs to be revisited time and again. Armchair generals should rejoice.

Piccolo Studios has once again managed to take something dark, desolate, and painful and find the beauty in it. After Us is a haunting tale of humanity's atrocities against the planet that hits closer to home than most people would want to accept. The game's mesmerising imagery haunted me at times and at other times had me in awe with its gorgeous vistas and art direction. It may be a simply platformer but it has a power message that everyone should pay attention to.

The best boomer shooter I've played in a long time, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is weapons-grade catnip for genre fans and Warhammer 40,000 fans alike. Indeed in retrospect, crafting a retro style FPS in the Warhammer 40,000 universe feels like something we should have had long before now - so perfect is the fit of form and function. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe there is only war. Apparently there are also supremely great shooters too. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a riotously violent and thoroughly entertaining shooter that everybody needs to play.

What begins as a charming, simple puzzler grows and evolves into something special. Humanity is one of the best puzzle games I've played in quite some time.

A highly enjoyable and delightfully chaotic racer is drowned in open-world mush that does little to enhance the core point of Lego 2K Drive. Nothing’s truly awful about that side of it, but it does drag down the fun levels of the racing itself.

Death Or Treat can be a fun 2D rogue-lite at first, but the gameplay becomes bland far too quickly, well before the much more polished final stage which comes too late to be the game's savior, and the charm created by its admittedly excellent visual style and animation isn't enough to keep you going, especially when that visual style is bogged down by commentary that only distracts you from the game's world.

In terms of production values and writing, Mia and the Dragon Princess is a standout in Wales Interactive’s FMV-inspired run of games. Unfortunately, it stumbles around its branching narrative device and the story’s pacing and structure can suffer the consequences.

Grindstone is one of the most addictive games I have played this year. A beautiful presentation melded with a rewarding, visceral gameplay loop makes you not want to put it down. Grindstone is a bright, Saturday morning cartoon where you can meet weird people, and chop up endless amount of cute characters, what's not to like? I cannot recommend it enough, Grindstone is brilliant.

Another Fisherman's Tale may not win any awards for visuals or reinvent the wheel in gameplay. Nevertheless, the love Vertigo Games put in shines through. The story is flawless and the gameplay, while relatively simple, serves its purpose without getting in the way of itself. Another Fisherman’s Tale is a beautiful game that deserves your time on PSVR2.

With a potentially boundless universe of characters, worlds and more to tap into, Disney Speedstorm could conceivably provide fans of the House of Mouse with a steady diet of endless Disney themed content to get stuck into. Gorgeous to look at super satisfying to play, Disney Speedstorm's pay to win mechanics aren't sufficiently weighty to substantially detract from everything that it does right and for fans of both all things Walt Disney and kart racing, Disney Speedstorm will likely prove to be an irresistible proposition that could largely mitigate the grind of its longer term prospects.

If you don't like Monster Hunter this expansion will not change your mind. However, if you do then this expansion is a must-buy. New Monsters and maps are a given but the updates to the switch skills, the follower system and various tweaks really add to the whole experience. Plus, with all the updates released so far already available, there is a massive amount of content here with more to come. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak may not be perfect but it skirts incredibly close to it.

My feelings on Teslagrad 2 are simply disappointment. It’s a fairly solid Metroidvania with some frustrating moments and a vagueness that rubbed me the wrong way at times. It’s undeniably beautiful to watch in action, and that helps carry it across the line.

The indie horror scene does it again, showing the big studios what the horror genre needs. Not all the ideas work as well as they should, but the game delivers a unified vision that still gets under your skin.

Silly, surreal, unsettling, and quietly effective at delivering its message. Smile For Me's abstract nature can be a barrier, but breaking through it will allow you to experience a very distinct adventure.

Though short and certainly limited in a number of ways, Saga of Sins nonetheless leaves an indelible impression. With no shortage of imagination and a solid grasp of action platforming fundamentals, Saga of Sins not only impresses but provides an eye-opening blueprint for where a hopefully much more content stuffed sequel could go next. As it is, Saga of Sins is a breathlessly stylish, though overly brief action platformer that boasts a compelling setting that everybody should check out.

On the surface, Varney Lake is just more of the Pixel Pulp adventure we got from the excellent Mothmen: 1966. Yet Varney Lake's story of childhood interrupted by a chance encounter with a vampire is a more captivating one.

It’s a shame Bramble: The Mountain King has such frustrating level design drawbacks because it undercuts a beautifully dark and disturbing fable. It’s not doing a whole lot as a game that helps it stick out either, but the narrative structure behind it rescues it from the clutches of true disappointment.

As golf games go, this is the most fun I have had in a while. It's a massive improvement over recent years' titles. The career mode is both addictive and rewarding, it's full of contact and the presentation is both cinematic and beautiful. A few issues will not get in the way of what I think is the best golf sim around at the moment. Let's hit the greens, people!

Respawn Entertainment solidifies itself as the best Star Wars developer around. Crafting a big galaxy to explore with an epic story that borrows and explores past Star Wars lore. Jedi Survivor improves on its predecessor and surpasses it in every way.

Square-Enix put together a fine collection of its first Final Fantasies, adding in some features that bring a bit of a modern touch without losing too much of the original varnish. Not all games work perfectly with these features, and the games still show they were made 30 years ago, but the final package delivered a nostalgic burst worthy of the franchise namesake.

There's a great deal of cool traits to Strayed Lights, including thoughtful enemy design, strong premise, and charming visuals. However, pacing suffers greatly, and combat forces its way into the forefront with memorization and inconsistent parry windows. It's short and can be sweet, but there's an overarching bitterness that's hard to ignore.

Trinity Trigger plays it as safely as possible with an all-star development team. It's a shame it didn't try harder to elevate the genre like the Y's franchise constantly does with every entry. Trinity Trigger isn't a bad game by any means. It has a decent story, and exploration and combat can be fun; it just doesn't do enough to be a memorable title in a crowded genre.

An excellent remaster of an excellent game, Live A Live influence can be spotted in many titles to this day, and most people may have never even heard of it. After 30 years, consumers can finally enjoy one of the most unique and compelling JRPGS from the SNES area.

For better or worse, Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is simply more Horizon Forbidden West and for fans of the game and also its detractors, that will be to their joy and chagrin respectively. As it is, Burning Shores is an impressively spectacle stuffed, though routinely unambitious expansion that does little to address the weaknesses of the core franchise but still manages to provide an effective bridge to the third game in the Horizon trilogy.

Dambuster Studios has come in and created a highly entertaining cavalcade of carnage with Dead Island 2. It’s a game that takes great joy in the simple act of smashing, splatting, and slicing the undead into meaty chunks and I’m very much here for that.

Creed: Rise to Glory - Championship Edition overhauls a pretty good PSVR arcade boxing game and transforms it into a proper test of endurance and skill. There’s still some technical hiccups that stop it short of going a full 12 rounds, but this game will give you one hell of a workout and a clear goal.

Capcom has produced another delightful capsule of its past with Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. The quality of the games themselves varies, but there's a lot to like about the bundle of goodies we get from it.